Mark Mills: The Information Officer

“Good evening,” she said quietly in Maltese as she drew level.

He was seated on the low stone wall to the right of the path, and he responded in English.

“I think you’ll find it’s morning, Carmela.”

She didn’t know the voice, or if she did, she couldn’t place it.

“Did you make good money tonight?” he asked.

He not only knew her, but he knew what she did, and she was happy he couldn’t see the color rising in her cheeks.

“Yes, not bad.”

“Oh, but you are, and you know it.”

It wasn’t so much the words as the slow, easy drawl with which they were delivered that set her heart racing.

His small laugh did something to soothe her building apprehension.

“I was only joking.”

He drew long and hard on his cigarette. In the dim glow of burning tobacco, she could just discern that he was wearing khaki battle dress: shirt and shorts. This didn’t help much. All the services had adopted it recently, and she was unable to make out the shoulder flashes.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Ah, now I’m insulted.”

It could have been Harry, or Bernard, or even young Bill, the one they all called “little Willy” (before invariably erupting in laughter). But she didn’t feel like laughing because it could have been almost any one of the officers who passed through the Blue Parrot on a typical night, and this man remained silent, enjoying her confusion, her discomfort, which was cruel and uncalled for.

“I must go.”

He was off the wall and seizing her arm before she had taken two paces.

“What’s the hurry?”

She tried to pull free, but his grip was firm, viselike, painful. She let out a small cry and attempted to twist away. The maneuver failed miserably, and she found herself trapped against him, her back pressed into his chest.

He clamped his free hand over her mouth. “Ssshhhh,” he soothed.

He spat the cigarette away and put his mouth to her ear.

“You want to know who I am? I’m the last living soul you’ll ever set eyes on.”

She didn’t need to know all of the words; she understood their meaning. And now she began to struggle in earnest, her thoughts turning to her home, her parents, her brothers, her dog, all so close, just a short way up the hill.

He repaid her efforts by twisting her left arm up behind her until something gave in her shoulder. The pain ripped through her, carrying her to the brink of unconsciousness, her knees starting to give. In desperation she tried to bite the hand gagging her cries, but he cupped his fingers away from her teeth. His other hand released her now-useless arm and jammed itself between her legs, into the fork of her thighs, pulling her back against him.

His breathing was strangely calm and measured, and there was something in the sound of it that suggested he was smiling.

DAY ONE

“TEA OR COFFEE?”

“Which do you recommend?”

“Well, the first tastes like dishwater, the second like slurry runoff.”

“I’ll try the slurry runoff.”

Max summoned the attention of the waiter hovering nearby. He was new—squat and toadlike—some member of the kitchen staff drafted in to replace Ugo, whose wife had been wounded in a strafing attack over the weekend while out strolling with friends near Rabat. Gratifyingly, the pilot of the Messerschmitt 109 had paid for this outrage with his life, a Spitfire from Ta’ Qali dropping onto his tail moments later and bringing him down in the drink off the Dingli Cliffs.

“How’s Ugo’s wife?” Max inquired of the waiter.

“She dead.”

“Oh.”

In case there was any doubt, the waiter tilted his head to one side and let a fat tongue roll out of his mouth. The eyes remained open, staring.

“Two coffees, please.”

“Two coffee.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Max’s eyes tracked the waiter as he waddled off, but his thoughts were elsewhere, with Ugo, and he wondered how long it would be before he smiled his crooked smile again.

He forced his attention back to the young man sitting across from him. Edward Pemberton was taking in his surroundings—the tall windows, the elaborately painted walls, and the high beamed ceiling—apparently immune to the mention of death.

“What a beautiful place.”

“It’s the old Auberge de Provence.”

Once home to the Knights of Saint John, the grand baroque edifice now housed the Union Club, a welcome haven from the hard realities of war for the officer classes. The building seemed to bear a charmed life, standing remarkably unscathed among the ruins and rubble of Kingsway, Valetta’s principal street. With its reassuring whiff of a Saint James’s gentleman’s club, there was no better place to break the news to young Pemberton. It might help soften the blow.

“Who’s Ugo?”

So he had been listening, after all.

“The head waiter.”

“How did his wife die?”

Max hesitated, then told him the story. No point in pretending that things hadn’t turned nasty of late. In fact, it might fire his sense of outrage, winning him over to the cause, although, when it came to it, Pemberton would have very little say in the matter. He wouldn’t be leaving Malta anytime soon; he just didn’t know that yet. Another bird of passage ensnared by the beleaguered garrison. Poor bastard.

Max spelled it out as gently as he could. The lieutenant governor’s office had already been in touch with the brass in Gibraltar, who appreciated that Malta’s back was up against the wall. If Pemberton’s services were required on the island, then so be it. Needs must, and all that. Force majeure. First dibs to the downtrodden. You get the picture.

“I understand,” said Pemberton.

“Really?”

“Absolutely, sir. No objections.”

Max wanted to ask him if he had any notion of what lay in store for him: the breathless heat and the choking dust; the mosquitoes, sand flies, and man-eating fleas; the sleepless nights and the starvation rations. Oh, and the Luftwaffe, who, together with the Regia Aeronautica, were intent on wiping the island off the map, on bombing it into oblivion.

“I never wanted to go to Gib,” Pemberton went on. “It never appealed … as a place, I mean.”

War as tourism , thought Max. Well, that’s one way of coming at it, and probably no better or worse than any other.

“Malta has a lot to offer,” said Max. “When the history of the war comes to be written, this little lump of rock in the middle of the Med will figure large.”

“If you’re appealing to my vanity, it might just work.”

Max gave a short loud laugh, which drew glances from a couple of artillery types at a nearby table. Pemberton was smiling coyly, faultless teeth flashing in his wide, strong mouth. Matinee idol looks and a sense of humor. Perfect fodder for Rosamund , Max mused. She’ll never forgive me if I don’t offer her the right of first refusal .

Pemberton explained (with a degree of candor he would soon learn to curb) that he was sick of being shunted from pillar to post under the protective tutelage of his uncle, a bigwig in the War Office.

“I should warn you, he won’t be best pleased.”

“Then you can tell him that Malta has already saved your life,” replied Max. “The seaplane you should have flown out on last night is missing.”

“Missing?”

“Brought down near Pantelleria, we think. They have the radio direction finding and a squadron of 109s stationed there. We won’t know for sure until we hear what Rome Radio has to say on the matter. They talk a lot of rubbish, of course, but we’ve grown pretty adept at panning for the small truths that matter to us.”